"Several. On one occasion, in a band of half a dozen."

“Sounds like you’re getting what you hoped for out of the pamphlet then? Have the conversations been what you expected?

- Oh, I haven’t introduced myself, I’m Voyager… Desnia.” 

"Good evening to you, Voyager. Yes, it's been within my projected range in most respects."

“Well, I’m not sure what you were expecting from your evening, but I’m here because I’ve never had a chance for a… friendly… conversation with a cleric of Asmodeus before, former or otherwise and it’s both the kind of new experience that I wouldn’t want to pass up and it also… might help with some of the ways I’ve been missing opportunities since the war.” 

Her baby is starting to wiggle. She puts him down on the ground. 

"Missing opportunities?"

“Well, I was a cleric before the war, but of course everything was very different then. I couldn’t do anything openly. I worked mostly as a messenger with the occasional opportunity to smuggle people out of the country. But not much preaching or spiritual guidance or that sort of thing, except in the sorts of distant tiny villages with no churches, where Asmodeism never fully took root. 

And so even though I’ve lived in Cheliax most of my life I understand Asmodeism and the people of Cheliax much less than one might expect. And it’s harder to help people when one doesn’t understand them.”

"I think that's a problem the foreign clerics are running into just the same way; it's a lot of what I mean to have be my own niche."

“I think the foreign clerics are having a harder time than I am. But maybe imagining me as a foreign cleric might work well as a first pass for advice. What are the mistakes you’ve been seeing them make the most?”

"They're - easily shocked. Used to relying on concepts that Chelish people do not have entire."

"I mostly haven't been shocked, or at least not obviously so, though I was avoiding large cities and such before so I've still had some sad surprises - but I have pretty good reason to believe that I can if I'm trying pass adequately as an unremarkable Chelish person. 

- but I do think that I might sometimes be missing it when there’s concepts that Chelish people do not have entire and am too prone to assuming it’s that they are of course - hiding that understanding from people they don't trust?" 

"It's not always either of those, sometimes they have - several guesses and don't know which to put weight on even if one guess is actually pretty good, or... I'm reluctant to use examples from people who've been in here to talk to me even when they did not expressly ask for confidentiality, in part because I doubt any of them would have felt able to rely on such confidentiality if it had been in place, so their not asking doesn't mean they wouldn't have wanted it. I'm sure a lot of them could tell you the definition of confidentiality."

She nods. 

“That sounds familiar to me. How do you think - you came by the concepts that many people are missing?”

The baby has crawled a bit away. She quickly fetches him back. 

"I don't think I have them all. The ones I have are a combination of... commitment to Law over Evil, which I've always had, and the Asmodean clergy as a whole tended the other way but it wasn't hard to get instruction on Law when I wanted it. Exposure to our allies at the Worldwound and backforming what might have driven them once I needed to know. The Lastwall disciplinary handbook and the Acts of Iomedae - I think these would have been less effective if I hadn't been committed to using them as ways to shape my life but since I was they helped. Most recently I was able to get part of the way through a course of catechism in Lastwall before convention responsibilities called me back here."

“I think I’m lacking in understanding of Law, myself.

I can grasp the outline of it, sometimes - I can see why it would sometimes be good to be able to promise confidentiality and have it be believed.

But - the set of things Law is valuable for seems so narrow. It seems by far inferior to being Good. What was the benefit of Law in Asmodean Cheliax? Was it even possible to be good and lawful? Was it actually illegal to detect as Good? I never bothered to learn the finer points of the law, I only knew that being read as Good would likely get me killed, not on what grounds it would do so.” 

"The benefit of Law in Asmodean Cheliax was that we could hold the Worldwound together with our worst enemies, but mostly I just seem to be that way temperamentally. - I don't know if it was possible to be Lawful Good in very many places and times in Infernal Cheliax. Difficult in the extreme if it was possible, though Law is not identical to following the written code of laws... It was not illegal to be Good per se but being detectably so would tend to cause whoever detected you to assume that you were some kind of rebel or infiltrator, because you'd have to be powerful or a cleric or both, and it was not legally required to be restrained in apprehending and punishing suspected rebels and infiltrators."

The baby has been fussing for a bit, and now he’s starting to outright cry. She picks him up, tries bouncing him. 

“Sorry about that.

- That… holds together as an answer but I still don’t see it. But I’m not sure what to ask, to understand better.” 

She shrugs, clearly a bit distracted by the baby. 

"I'm not sure it would be to your advantage to have a strong intuitive understanding of Law, if you're a Desnan. Not that I expect my trying to explain more would get you to the point where you'd be too far away from Her, I haven't the Splendor, but if I were you I would be careful with steps in that direction."

"It would have never occurred to me to worry about that as a possibility. Is that how you stopped being His?" 

"No. That was nothing I did, I was dropped on the same day as everyone else."

"Ah, right, you said in the pamphlet. Not getting enough sleep is making me a bit scattered. It's making the convention harder also." 

She gestures towards the child on her hip, who has settled down a bit. 

"I'm a bit more intimidated by you than I expected to be. Even though you're less intimidating than I expected you to be. If that makes any sense at all." 

"I think it does make sense. If there is anything I could be doing to help with that I would like to know."

"If I think of anything I'll let you know. It's just - 

- did you ever Maledict anyone?" 

"No. If I had I'd -"

"- no. When Iomedae selected me I burned the scroll that was at my fort, if I'd ever Maledicted someone I would have tried using it to un-Maledict them, the spell can be cast backward."